


purgatorium

by antluhrs



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Minor Character Death, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:15:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8769589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antluhrs/pseuds/antluhrs
Summary: "see, the darkness is leaking from the cracks / i cannot contain it / i cannot contain my life"





	

She’s not sure how she found it; it probably found her.

She’d been driving for a week, because she’d had to stop for supplies, food, and the occasional pee. And the nervous breakdowns, which she assumes usually happen when you drop out of school, throw out your entire closet, and drive across the country with no real destination in mind. She was exhausted, sore, pissed as hell, and, to put it bluntly, suicidal. And newly blonde. And in _desperate_ need of a drink.

God, she needed a drink.

So there Felicity was, crying in her beat-up, used, ugly Beetle, sitting on the side of the road surrounded by forest in Nowhere-ville, California. It wasn’t a bad place to cry.

The details are fuzzy, but this, she remembers; it’s day nine, and she’d been circling around Northern California for days. She couldn’t stand the east coast for ridiculously painful reasons, the middle of the country was almost too bleak (plus, you know, overt racism), and she couldn’t be within several miles of home. It’d be way too easy for her mother to visit, and that wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

The scenery was fitting. The sun was starting to go down, but you could barely tell through the assaulting image of nothing but forest. Tree after tree after tree, with long, winding stalks, and deep leaves that blended together towards the very tops of the sky. It was starting to drizzle slightly, but you couldn’t hear it yet; the ride had been dead silent for hours, save for the occasional bird and burst of strong wind.

She raises her head from her hands, her tears having left dark mascara marks across her palms and knuckles. She wipes her eyes anyway, collecting herself with a deep breath, before grabbing a tight hold of the wheel.

She’s a Smoak, damnit. She needs to keep going.

The first sign of civilization she’d seen for hours is a fork in the road, because of course it is.

On the left is more dirt and trees, with a sign sticking out somewhere in the middle. Food, plus lodging, plus gas. Green Arrow, ten miles. She’d never heard of it, but then again, she’d never heard of any of the places up here. It’s closer. She could stop, get something to snack on, refill on gas, and take a second to actually breathe.

( _Breathe. Breathe, breathe_. Breathe.)

Then she’d keep running.

(Her body is screaming, _screaming_ , that she needs to go right. But there’s nothing physical, tangible, that tells her this is the direction she needs to go in. And she’s a girl who has always believed in what she makes out with her own two eyes.)

Felicity sighs, leaning back into her seat and shivering. She’s cold, hungry, _tired_. It’s getting darker.

She goes left.


End file.
